Monday August 7, 2006 5:59 pm

WWDC 2006: Apple Introduces The Mac Pro

This morning at the WWDC, Apple introduced the new Mac Pro. The Mac Pro takes the place of the PowerMac, and completes the Apple transition from IBM to Intel (along with the new updated XServe boxes.) So, while it was obvious that these things would likely run Intel’s new Woodcrest Xeons, Apple confirmed all that and more. The Xeons are 64-bit chips and will run at up to 3 GHz and have a 4 MB shared L2 cache, and a vector engine that is speedier than the Velocity engine. The Mac Pros will sport two Xeon processors, which Apple is affectionately calling the Xeon Quad. The machine now has four hard drive bays, supporting up to 2 TB of storage, along with what Apple says was the most requested feature - two optical drives. YOu can also expect FireFiew 800, front and back USB ports, and a slew of other options. Apple introduced a standard configuration, which features Dual 2.66 dual core Xeon processors, 1 GB DDR-667 RAM, 250 MB hard drive, 16x SuperDrive, and 256 MB nVidia GeForce 7300GT. The best thing here is the price - just $2499. While pricey at first glance, a similarly built Dell would cost about $1,000 more.

For those who can’t wait, there is no need to. The Mac Pro ships today.